Journal News Waves the White Flag

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's gun law is a hastily assembled mess of panic legislation. It may have made criminals out of cops while screwing up Olympic training. By limiting handgun magazines to 7 rounds, it may be an illegal backdoor ban on all semiautomatic handguns since most of them use magazines of 8 or more rounds.

But there was one good bit in it. It allows gun permit holders to take their personal information out of publicly obtainable information, and bans any publication of personal permit information for 120 days. Those provisions have become a fig leaf behind which the Journal News can hide while it pulls down its map of local gun owners in the White Plains area.

A newspaper has removed an interactive online map of handgun permit holders in two New York counties that drew nationwide anger and prompted threats against its staff, the publisher said Friday.

The decision by the paper, The Journal News, to take the information off its Web site came in response to the passage of sweeping gun legislation in Albany this week, the publisher, Janet Hasson, said in a statement. “While the new law does not require us to remove the data, we believe that doing so complies with its spirit,” she said.

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In a note to readers published on Friday, Ms. Hasson said the decision to remove the interactive map, which was posted in response to the mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., was neither a concession to critics nor a response to threats. “We know our business is a controversial one, and we do not cower,” she said.